10 Best Major John Cena Feuds
2. Vs. Edge
It's difficult to reconcile now, given the sheer overkill of the trope, but Edge's New Year's Revolution 2006 Money In The Bank cash-in was an exceptional way to instigate a rivalry. Here was John Cena, who in storylines was the hardest-working guy in the company - so hard-working that his industry compensated for his lack of natural talent - successfully defending his WWE Championship, again, in the kayfabe most difficult defence of them all.
Then, there was Edge: a sleazy heel who months earlier had escaped punishment for a particularly personal backstage transgression, picking at Cena's bones.
Opposites attract in wrestling. Ricky Steamboat was the sympathetic everyman to Ric Flair's affluent a**hole. Shawn Michaels was the politicking punk to Bret Hart's stoic paragon of professionalism. Cena was the new family-friendly face of WWE - PG before WWE went PG. Edge, in contrast, was the Rated-R Superstar. Theirs was a dynamite chemistry shaped through repulsion. The angles, including a hilarious hotel room invasion bit in which Edge mercilessly tore the bellhop a new one, were great. So was Edge's appropriation of the spinner belt.
And so, too, were the matches, spanning from 2006-09. If they contrasted perfectly outside of the ring, they complemented each other perfectly inside of it, sharing an indefinable, iron-sharpening-iron chemistry.